On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 7:13:56 AM UTC-7, wrote:
The news about the B777 accident at SFO is getting me confused. The news stories are constantly pointing to the Autothrottle not maintaining airspeed (and question if the 3 pilots in the cockpit were monitoring airspeed)but in all the aircraft I have flown airspeed is controlled primarily with pitch. Is there something fundamentally different about airspeed control in large jet aircraft? My experience is that pitch controls airspeed and power controls climb/descent, especially in the approach to landing situation.



Guy Acheson "DDS"

If you don't care how fast you are coming down yes you can control the airspeed with pitch. If you are trying to maintain a fixed glide angle (3 degrees for most airliner approaches) you will have to add power. IF the were maintaining the glide path with insufficient power there airspeed would have continued to decay all the way down final approach.